Mark L. Stout Consulting is an all-purpose transportation consulting firm, specializing in finance, program management, and legislative and DOT policy. Our company has served public agencies and non-profits, big and small, all across the nation. Mark is widely-recognized as an expert whose years of experience can help organizations to break through gridlock and deliver transformative projects and innovative community enhancements.

Mark L. Stout Consulting

Monday, August 7, 2017

Farmers’ markets (or farmstands) provide fresh local produce
and farm products for travelers and cash income for local farmers, while
advertising the virtues of the host state and the local countryside.

So, why don’t all rest areas have farmers’ markets?

Mainly because of institutional barriers.(Which, by the way, is no excuse for
the poor traffic design and inadequate traveler information at typical rest
areas.)

(See below – Jersey tomatoes on the Atlantic City
Expressway!Thanks to South Jersey
Transportation Authority.)

You may have heard that the UK plans to ban the sale of
gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2040 (story here).You may even have heard that they are experimenting with air
quality barriers and canopies to clean the air along highways (story here).

Perhaps less sexy – but I think just as important – is the
fact that they are committed to providing electric vehicle charging stations
along all major highways (see their new plan here).

“Highways England,” the agency that operates motorways and
trunk roads (roughly equivalent to the US Interstate and National Highway
Systems) is committed to building a “comprehensive national network” of rapid
charging stations, with a goal of placing charging stations at 20-mile
intervals on 95 percent of their system.These will be rapid (30-minute) chargers where feasible.